Patient & Advice Liaison Service

South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust (SCAS) aims to provide the highest standards of response, care and treatment to the patients and community it serves. It's important that the professional service we provide to you meets your needs and expectations. We recognise that occasionally things can go wrong. It's vital therefore that we identify those occasions and put the processes in place to prevent a repeat occurrence. We have dedicated resources available to assist anyone who wishes to make a comment - good or bad, on any of our services. Our teams particularly value positive feedback on the care they have provided to patients.

SCAS PALS team is on hand to offer you guidance and advice on any matter relating to the service we provide. The team will work on your behalf to provide answers and understanding should you have a need to discuss any aspect of our care or treatment to you or a close relative or friend. Please click here to download our PALS leaflet.

The PALS team do not deal directly with complaints - but they will help you and advise you on the options available to you and help you decide on the most appropriate course of action in dealing with any concerns you have.

Formal complaints will always be dealt with in accordance with the NHS complaints process.

To contact the PALS team phone Liz Rees on 01962 898 069
or email: liz.rees@scas.nhs.uk

Don't wait until things go wrong...

• Give advice and information on all aspects of the ambulance service and other local health services.
• Help patients to get information from other useful services and support groups.
• Listen to patients concerns, and get answers to their queries.
• Work with patients and the public to make sure their views are used to improve the service.
• If a problem can't be resolved, we can help patients to make a formal complaint

We Value Your Comments
We hope that when you have cause to use the Ambulance Service, whether in the height of an emergency or as a means of transport to a hospital outpatient appointment, you will always find the service of a high quality. However we realise that things can go wrong due to a number of varied and complex reasons. It this happens you may wish to have this investigated, either through PALS, or as a formal complaint.

We know that a great many patients appreciate the work done by the Ambulance Service, both Accident & Emergency and Patient Transport, and often thank the staff verbally at the time. However, if anyone feels a particular member of staff deserves a special " thank you" for whatever reason, please do write in and let us know how you feel.

It may be that you have suggestions for ways we can improve our service, if so we would be pleased to hear from you - we value your opinions!

We admit our mistakes
Although we strive to ensure that all the patients we serve receive the best possible service and care, we are not perfect and mistakes and misunderstandings do occur.

However we cannot improve the service if we do not know what goes wrong, when it goes wrong and in this way we are able to use complaints and PALS as a positive learning exercise to improve the quality of the service we provide.

How to complain?
If you have a concern regarding any area of the service we provide, in the first instance this should be raised at the time with the member of staff concerned. It may be that there is a simple explanation or a resolution which can be given straight away. If you are not happy with this explanation or if you have any questions or concerns you can contact the PALS department.

If you feel you need to complain please email the Complaints Manager at liz.rees@scas.nhs.uk, or by phone on 01962 898 069 or you can send a letter addressed to the Chief Executive at the following address:

South Central Ambulance Service NHS Trust
Unit 7 And 8 Talisman Business Centre
Talisman Road
Bicester
Oxfordshire
OX26 6HR